The expenses you can claim after a car accident fall into two groups: economic damages, meaning money you actually spent or lost, and non-economic damages, meaning the pain, distress, and reduced quality of life the crash caused. In practice that covers medical bills, lost income, vehicle and property damage, help around the house while you recover, mileage to appointments, and compensation for the physical and emotional toll. What you ultimately collect also depends on fault, your state’s insurance system, and any liens against your settlement.
Medical Bills and Future Treatment
Medical care is usually the largest piece of a claim. Ambulance transport, emergency room visits, hospital stays, and diagnostic imaging like X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs all count, as do prescription medications during the initial healing phase. Keep every itemized bill. Line items for physician fees, lab work, and imaging each factor into your demand.
Ongoing rehabilitation is claimable too. Physical therapy, chiropractic care, occupational therapy, and follow-up specialist visits qualify as long as they’re medically necessary. Matching your billing records to the treatment notes in your chart makes it harder for an insurer to challenge an individual charge.
Future medical expenses are recoverable when a doctor’s prognosis shows you’ll need continued treatment, including anticipated surgeries, long-term medication, or extended therapy. Proving these usually requires testimony from a medical expert who can project the costs in current dollars. Skipping this step is costly, because once you settle you generally cannot go back and ask for more.
Lost Wages and Reduced Earning Capacity
When injuries keep you out of work, you can claim the full income you missed from the date of the accident through your return. That includes base salary, overtime, bonuses, commissions, tips, and sick leave or vacation time you had to burn. Your employer can confirm the amount with a wage statement or letter stating your pay rate and the dates you missed.
If your injuries permanently cut your hours, force you into a different role, or stop you from working at all, you can also pursue reduced earning capacity. This measures the gap between what you would have earned over your working lifetime and what you can earn now. Actuarial projections and vocational experts typically weigh your age, education, skills, and prior career trajectory to estimate the loss.
If You’re Self-Employed
Proving lost income without regular pay stubs takes more paperwork, but the damages are just as valid. Tax returns (Schedule C for sole proprietors), profit-and-loss statements, bank statements, invoices, and 1099 forms can establish your typical earnings. If your income swings seasonally, two to three years of records help show a reliable baseline. Contracts or client emails confirming canceled or postponed work during recovery strengthen the claim further.
Vehicle Damage, Personal Property, and Diminished Value
You can claim the full cost of repairing your vehicle to its pre-accident condition. If repair costs exceed a certain percentage of the car’s actual cash value, with thresholds that vary by state but typically fall between 70% and 100%, the insurer will declare it a total loss and pay the vehicle’s fair market value immediately before the crash, minus your deductible.
Personal property inside the car is also covered. Child safety seats should be replaced after any moderate or severe crash, which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration defines as one where the car couldn’t be driven away, the door nearest the seat was damaged, airbags deployed, anyone was injured, or the seat itself shows visible damage.1National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Car Seat Use After a Crash If your crash doesn’t clearly meet the criteria for a minor collision, replace the seat and add it to your claim. Electronics, eyeglasses, clothing, and anything else damaged in the impact can also be included. Document each item with photos and receipts or current replacement pricing.
Even after a car is fully repaired, its resale value drops because the accident now shows up on the vehicle’s history report. The difference is called diminished value, and in most states you can file a diminished value claim against the at-fault driver’s liability insurance. These claims work best when the vehicle is relatively new, has low mileage, and had no prior accident history. Not every state allows them, and some restrict them to crashes where the other driver was clearly at fault, so check your state’s rules.
Help Around the House
Serious injuries can make everyday tasks impossible. The cost of hiring someone to clean, mow the lawn, shovel snow, or handle other chores you used to do yourself is claimable as a replacement service, because the expense results directly from the accident. If you were the primary caregiver for children or elderly relatives, childcare, daycare, or in-home aide expenses are also recoverable. Save invoices from every provider, and make sure your medical records document the physical limitations that make the help necessary.
Home Modifications
When a crash causes a long-term or permanent disability, you may need to modify your home to live safely. Wheelchair ramps, widened doorways, lowered counters, grab bars, roll-in showers, and stairway lifts are all examples. These are economic damages because they’re out-of-pocket costs caused by the injury. A doctor or rehabilitation specialist should document why each modification is medically necessary, since that medical link is what makes the expense recoverable.
Travel, Mileage, and Out-of-Pocket Costs
Smaller expenses pile up over months of recovery. A rental car while yours is being repaired is a standard claim, and you can seek the full daily cost from the at-fault driver’s coverage even if your own policy caps rental benefits at a lower amount. Keep all rental agreements and receipts.
Transportation to and from medical appointments is also recoverable. The IRS sets a standard medical mileage rate, 20.5 cents per mile for 2026, that you can use instead of tracking actual gas and oil costs.2Internal Revenue Service. IRS Sets 2026 Business Standard Mileage Rate at 72.5 Cents Per Mile, Up 2.5 Cents Parking fees and tolls go on top of the mileage rate.3Internal Revenue Service. Publication 502 (2025), Medical and Dental Expenses Also track assistive devices like crutches, knee braces, and walkers, along with insurance co-pays and prescription co-pays. Any one receipt looks small; together they add up.
Pain, Suffering, and Emotional Distress
Beyond money you actually spent, you can seek compensation for physical pain, emotional distress, and reduced quality of life. These non-economic damages don’t come with a receipt, but they’re a recognized part of nearly every personal injury claim.
Insurers and attorneys commonly use one of two methods to estimate them:
- Multiplier method: your total economic damages are multiplied by a factor, typically between 1.5 and 5, depending on injury severity, length of recovery, and long-term impact on daily life.
- Per diem method: a daily dollar amount is assigned to your pain and discomfort, then multiplied by the number of days you spent recovering.
Documentation strengthens these claims. Therapy records showing treatment for anxiety, PTSD, or depression; a personal journal tracking daily pain levels; and statements from family or friends who noticed changes in your mood, sleep, or social life can all serve as evidence. The more concrete detail you provide, the harder it is for an insurer to call these damages exaggerated.
What Can Shrink Your Recovery
Several rules can reduce or wipe out what you actually collect, so it’s worth knowing them before you negotiate.
Your Share of Fault
States use one of three systems. In pure contributory negligence jurisdictions (four states and the District of Columbia), being even 1% at fault bars recovery entirely. In modified comparative negligence states (roughly 33), your compensation is reduced by your percentage of fault, and you recover nothing once your share reaches either 50% or 51%, depending on the state. In pure comparative negligence states (about 12), you can recover even if you were 99% at fault, with your award reduced proportionally. If an insurer argues you were speeding or distracted, that percentage comes off every category of damages in this article.
No-Fault States and PIP
In roughly 12 states with no-fault auto insurance laws, you file injury-related claims with your own insurer’s personal injury protection (PIP) coverage first, regardless of who caused the crash. PIP typically covers medical bills, part of your lost wages, and some household service costs up to your policy limit. You can only step outside the no-fault system and sue the at-fault driver if your injuries meet a seriousness threshold, usually a permanent disability, disfigurement, or medical costs above a dollar amount set by state law. Below that threshold, PIP is your primary path to reimbursement.
Health Insurance Liens
If your health insurer paid for accident-related care, it likely has a right to be reimbursed from your settlement under a doctrine called subrogation. Most health plans, especially employer-sponsored ones governed by federal ERISA rules, contain enforceable reimbursement clauses. Hospitals and government programs like Medicaid may also place liens on your recovery. In practice, attorney’s fees come out of your settlement first, then liens, and the balance is yours. Lien amounts are often negotiable, and asking the lienholder to reduce the amount, especially when the settlement is modest relative to your total damages, can meaningfully increase your net check.
Taxes
Most car accident settlements are tax-free at the federal level. Under the Internal Revenue Code, damages received for personal physical injuries or physical sickness are excluded from gross income, whether paid through settlement or judgment.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 104 – Compensation for Injuries or Sickness That covers medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, and property damage tied to a physical injury.5Internal Revenue Service. Tax Implications of Settlements and Judgments Two exceptions matter. Punitive damages are taxable as ordinary income regardless of the underlying claim. And if you deducted medical expenses on a prior year’s return and your settlement later reimbursed those costs, you may owe tax on the reimbursed portion. Emotional distress damages are only tax-free when they stem from a physical injury.
Don’t Miss the Filing Deadline
Every state sets a statute of limitations for filing a personal injury lawsuit after a car accident. Deadlines run from one to six years, with 28 states setting the limit at two years. Miss it and you almost always lose the right to recover anything, no matter how strong the claim.
Some exceptions can extend the clock. Under the discovery rule, the deadline may not start until you knew or should have known about the injury, which can matter when herniated discs or traumatic brain injuries surface weeks or months after the crash. Minors generally get extra time, with the clock paused until they turn 18. Even with these exceptions, start documenting expenses and pursuing the claim as soon as you can.